


henwook | what are the odds they don't find out?

by plincess_cho (ai_hao)



Series: Fic Requests [69]
Category: Super Junior
Genre: Author: Ai, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_hao/pseuds/plincess_cho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry falls asleep in four countries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	henwook | what are the odds they don't find out?

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue Prompt: "What are the odds they don't find out?"

_Korea, 2007_

Henry spends a lot of time in Korea crying himself to sleep. He feels so lonely, but more than that, he feels alone. He wanders through the streets of Seoul hoping for someone to talk to, but no one understands. No one understands his incredibly poor Korean, and no one at home understands this odd situation that he's fallen into. His friends hadn't reacted well to him moving to Korea. There'd been less of the supportive sadness that he'd been hoping for, and more straight-up disapproval. "You're doing  _what_?" they'd asked. "You shouldn't go. Stay here instead."

But Henry hadn't listened to them. The day he left for Seoul, the only people who came to say goodbye had been his family. None of the friends who'd promised him they'd be friends for forever.

But now here he is, stuck in Korea, with no language training, no friends, and almost no money. He's survived on jjajjangmyeon for a few months before deciding that maybe he needs something a bit more nutritious. He tries to ask some of the other trainees for suggestions, but none of the ones he runs into happen to be from Seoul. He wanders through the streets looking for something identifiable. Really, he'd kill for anything that looked remotely _not_  Korean, but there's not much of that around. He wanders and wanders without finding anything. His watch beeps and he realizes that he's lost all track of time.

There's a music video rehearsal in thirty minutes that he can't miss or else he's dead. Henry pivots on his heel and runs back to his dorm as quickly as possible. He grabs his violin and books it towards the practice rooms, arriving sweaty, hungry, and embarrassingly out of breath.

Henry counts twelve Super Junior members crammed into the practice room that only they use (no other room is big enough) and wonders where number thirteen is. He spies Kyuhyun in the back, resting on a chair. From what Henry can ascertain in his very limited Chinese, Kyuhyun had been in a terrible car accident and is still recovering.

"They're not going to give him more time off?" Henry had asked Han Geng.  
Han Geng had smiled at him sadly before saying simply, "No."

Rehearsal goes as well as expected. Another member limps through practice as well, though he tries not to show it. Apparently Heechul had been in a car accident too. Henry vows never to get into a moving vehicle in Korea ever.

Afterwards, Eunhyuk helps Kyuhyun limp out of the practice room while the others file out. Nobody really says anything to Henry, and Henry doesn't have the words to say anything back. He stays behind to pack his violin back into its case when his stomach lets out something akin to a roar. He immediately places a hand on his stomach and hopes that no one heard.

"You... hungry?" a voice asks in broken English. Henry looks up to see one of the younger members, Ryeowook, standing next to him.

"Uh, yeah," Henry admits. He snaps his violin case shut and straightens up.

Ryeowook screws up his face as he tries to reply in English, but nothing comes out. He asks Henry something in Korean that he thinks sounds like food, but he's not quite sure. When he doesn't reply, Ryeowook grabs his arm and pulls him out of the practice room.

Henry finds himself at a smoky restaurant not to far from their dorms with Ryeowook, Sungmin, and Jongwoon. The other three debate excitedly about what to order after counting up the meager bills in their pockets. Henry wants to join in, but his hangul skills still aren't up to par and he can barely even make out the strokes on the stained menu. The waitress comes by and Sungmin orders something, and Henry decides just to wait and see.

After several failed attempts to engage Henry in discussion, the three other boys decide to teach him some vocabulary instead, and Henry is grateful. Ryeowook points at items and Sungmin pronounces the word. They gesture at him to repeat it and he does.

The waitress brings over a series of small dishes and Ryeowook motions towards the spread, "Banchan."

"Banchan," he repeats.

"Good!" Ryeowook exclaims, giving him an encouraging thumbs up.

When Henry falls asleep that night, his pillow remains dry.  
  
*  
  
_China, 2010_

Henry squeezes his eyes shut and wishes that it would all just go away. All of it. The jeers of the ‘fans.’ The shouts of the members. The bright stage lights. The foreign screams that he’ll never understand. China. Korea. This.

He feels a warm body press up against his side. A small hand slips into Henry’s and he hears Ryeowook’s voice whisper softly, “Ignore them.”

But Henry can’t. The chants are much too loud; it’s as if they echo against the hollow part in his chest. He wants to tell Ryeowook to leave him alone, to go away, to let him run away but...

“Ignore them,” Ryeowook murmurs again, his voice stronger. “Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them.” The more he whispers, the more Ryeowook’s voice drives out the demons in his head.

Henry runs offstage as quickly as possible, tripping over somebody’s mic cord. Ryeowook catches him before he falls. Before he falls headlong into despair. Henry doesn’t bother to blink back the tears in his eyes. He wants to run towards the bathroom to hide his shame, but Ryeowook grabs his arm and pulls him into a hug. He slides his arms under Henry’s and wriggles in close, nuzzling his nose into Henry’s shoulder. Henry leans onto Ryeowook and lets his tears drip into Ryeowook’s sweaty hair and for one moment, feels like he’s home.

“I’m sorry,” Ryeowook mumbles in English. “I’m sorry, Henli.”

They make it back to their hotel sometime later. The van ride is completely silent; nobody knows what to say. Kyuhyun’s sitting next to Zhou Mi, his eyes dark and flashing. Zhou Mi’s eyes are red like Henry’s, and he leans into Kyuhyun for comfort, for strength.

The manager informs them of their room assignments. “Henry and Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun and Ryeowook...”

“Let me room with Henry,” Ryeowook tells Kyuhyun. He immediately agrees and gently maneuvers a somewhat wobbly Zhou Mi towards the elevator.

Ryeowook prods Henry towards the shower, reminding him that hot water cures all ills, and immediately runs for the telephone. He doesn’t really know what anything on the room service menu is, but he picks a few things at random and tries anyways. The woman on the other end seems to understand him, so he hangs up and waits for his turn to shower.

He wraps Henry up in one of those fluffy bathrobes the hotel provides and hurries to rid himself of the sweat and grime accumulated during concerts. Someone once suggested that they just take all the members out back and hose them down, but of  _course_  he had protested. He didn’t trust Kim Heechul with a hose.

Ryeowook steps out, wrapped in his own fluffy bathrobe, right as the doorbell rings with their room service. Henry stiffens immediately and tries to look presentable, dabbing at his eyes with the collars of the bathrobe.

“Relax,” Ryeowook says. “You’re not in trouble.”

The food is delicious. Henry claims he doesn’t feel like eating, but Ryeowook informs him that he’s wrong. “Your stomach will thank you,” he says. “Besides, you didn’t eat before either.”

Henry wants to tell him that’s because his stomach had been tied up in knots, but it doesn’t matter now. Ryeowook piles things onto a plate for him and urges him to at least try something. His stomach gurgles and he realizes just how hungry he is. He bites in hungrily and wonders if food can heal the cracks in his heart.

It just might. He finds some pajamas and crawls into bed, a little chilly but quite full, and tries to fall asleep. He tosses and turns, trying to rid his mind of the sounds of the ‘fans’ booing him away.

There’s a rustle from the other side of the room and Ryeowook crawls under the covers next to him. He nuzzles into Henry’s back and starts singing a lullaby in Korean. Henry relaxes against him and lets Ryeowook’s voice sing him into dreamland.

*

_Taiwan, 2011_

“Let’s take a picture!” Zhou Mi exclaims. He digs in his ridiculously large man purse for his camera as everyone else shuffles around. Kyuhyun’s about to groan, but somebody hands him the last bit of their milk tea and he shuts up.

Zhou Mi recruits one of the managers to take the photo for them, and the position themselves accordingly. Ryeowook stands in the back, hidden behind Siwon, so Henry grabs him and pulls him forward, throwing his arm around his shoulders so he can’t escape. 

At the last minute, Kyuhyun makes a horrible Chinese pun that sends Zhou Mi into a fit of giggles, and the manager snaps the photo.

“No! Do it again!” Zhou Mi whines, perfectly embodying the aegyo he’d acquired in Korea.

The photo is successful and finally, filming is done for the day. Henry’s ready to head off to meet some of his friends and family, when he suddenly asks Ryeowook, “Do you want to come with me?”

Ryeowook is mildly surprised but jumps at the chance. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Henry replies. “You showed me around Korea. It’s time for me to show you around Taiwan.”

Ryeowook falls asleep that night feeling fat and happy. He knows he’ll regret all of the things he ate tonight later, but right now, he doesn’t care. Henry is  _happy_. So Ryeowook is happy too.

*

_Canada, 2015_

“What are the odds they don’t find out?” Henry asks. They’re sneaking out of the hotel room in Toronto to run to Henry’s parents’ house a night earlier than expected.

“Don’t worry,” Ryeowook replies, pushing up his sunglasses, “I bribed the managers.”

“I’m impressed,” Henry says, holding out his hand for a taxi.

“You pick things up when you live with Kim Heechul,” Ryeowook says nonchalantly. 

Mama Lau is overjoyed to see her boy earlier than he had told her. She folds him into her arms and blinks back tears, but these are tears of joy. Papa Lau and Whitney wander into the foyer to see what all the ruckus is about, and smiles break out on their faces once they realize who appeared.

Mama Lau turns to Ryeowook and pulls him into a hug as well. She starts speaking in English, realizes that Ryeowook has no idea what she’s saying, and then switches to Mandarin. When that doesn’t work either, she just smiles and hugs him again.

“Did I ever tell you I like your mom?” Ryeowook whispers to Henry in Korean.

“Only a thousand times,” Henry replies, throwing his arm around his sister. 

They laugh over a meal of dishes Ryeowook has never seen before. Henry tries to translate but gets too caught up in the stories to do a proper job. Ryeowook doesn’t mind; he remembers Henry’s early days in Korea and wonders if this is what it felt like then. So he sits back and enjoys the sounds of laughter and somehow, feels at home.

They bunk down in Henry’s room for the night. Henry collapses onto his bed and Ryeowook has to remind him to change out of his gross airplane clothes in order to sleep.

“Yes mom,” Henry replies jokingly.

They climb into Henry’s bed together, both jetlagged, full, and happy. Ryeowook fits himself against Henry and adjusts Henry’s arms so that they fit around him perfectly. Henry gives a sleepy chuckle and lets Ryeowook position him as he pleases.

He’s out the minute his head hits the pillow. Ryeowook feels the steady rise and fall of Henry’s chest against his back and knows he’s not too far from sleep himself. He looks around Henry’s room and thinks that it’s exactly how he pictured it, only slightly cleaner of course. The shelves are littered with music books, and a spattering of posters clutter the walls.

The moonlight shines in from the curtains they forgot to close, and Ryeowook’s eyes can just make out the photo on the nightstand. It’s of them, of Super Junior. Henry has his arm slung around Ryeowook’s, and they’re both beaming at the camera. The other members are clustered around: Kyuhyun is whispering something to Zhou Mi who’s giggling, like always. Donghae has that hideous orange hair from his drama. Eunhyuk and Sungmin are either looking cute or confused, nobody knows.

As Ryeowook falls asleep, he thinks back on the times he and Henry spent together. Korea. China. Taiwan. Canada. And all the countries in between. When he finally falls into his dreams, the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile and he realizes that no matter where they are, Henry will always feel like home.


End file.
